Modern Materials Handling—At ProMat 2017, speaker David DeLong, president of Smart Workforce Strategies, will explain why industry executives can no longer be complacent when it comes to recruiting, developing and retaining high potential employees and future leaders. His discussion, "Closing the Skills Gap: Innovative Talent Solutions for a Changing Workforce," will be 3:45 to 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday.

Logistics Management—The 2017 event has attracted more than 900 exhibitors—a new record—and will span more than 375,000 square feet of space throughout the sprawling McCormick Place. With so much under one roof, you may find it useful to pinpoint a few key solutions in advance to help optimize your time on the show floor.

MIT Technology Review—Many components go into making a vehicle capable of driving itself, but one is proving to be more crucial and contentious than all the rest. That vital ingredient is the lidar sensor, a device that maps objects in 3-D by bouncing laser beams off its real-world surroundings. Most companies in the race to commercialize self-driving cars consider lidar essential.

Modern Materials Handling—HAVI, a global company focused on optimizing and managing supply chains of leading brands in foodservice, has identified five foodservice industry trends for 2017 and beyond: increasingly diversified consumer demand, an emphasis on homemade, traceability, sustainability, and technology such as mobile ordering apps.

MHI Blog—Dun & Bradstreet, a New Jersey-based data insight company, donated $20,000 dollars to Guilford County Schools with $10,000 going straight to the Western Guilford’s logistics class. With this donation, six students from this class are able to attend Student Days at ProMat 2017 in April where they will have the opportunity to learn about the logistics industry first hand. Students will see hands-on demonstrations of the latest technologies and innovations from over 950 exhibitors from industry, commerce and government.

SupplyChainBrain—Today, many executives face a decision about whether to press forward and defend these supply chains, or begin to invest in digital capabilities that promise better integration and resiliency and can fuel differentiation, sustained prosperity and growth. Adding some urgency to this decision is that newcomers and some established players are beginning to adopt digital supply chains, which could put those that do not at a competitive disadvantage in the near future.

SCDigest—With about one-fifth of the U.S. population, and major ports (Los Angeles, Long Beach, and Oakland), there are many warehouses and distribution centers in California. Companies with current DC operations in the Golden State - or with potential plans to add a facility in California - should be aware of current and coming regulations on working conditions, especially those related to heat levels in the work environment.

EBN—A server security hole in a relatively new virtualization platform category called container software was detected and fixed before the damage was widespread. The vulnerability, known in the IT security world as CVE-2016-9962, could have hobbled many supply chain networks around the world. Except that it didn’t. The lesson learned: The backend software on the cloud for supply chain IT networks is vulnerable, but best practices can help to even the score against often daily attacks on any system.

Reuters—The U.S. Justice Department has ordered top executives from several container shipping lines to testify in an antitrust investigation over practices by an industry that is the backbone of world trade, the companies said. The world's biggest container group, Denmark's A.P. Moller-Maersk (MAERSKb.CO), together with second largest line MSC of Switzerland, Germany's Hapag Lloyd (HLAG.DE), Taiwan-based Evergreen and Hong Kong-based Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL) said their executives were among those who had been subpoenaed.

Food Business News—Kraft Heinz Co. has provided a snapshot of its corporate social responsibility approach, part of the company’s larger commitment to support its vision "To Be the Best Food Company, Growing a Better World." The company said it plans to initially focus on three areas: global hunger and malnutrition, supply chain sustainability and the environment.

CNBC—Costco is ramping up its home grocery delivery efforts by teaming up with a third-party service. Shipt, an online grocery delivery service, said it was adding Costco to its delivery service in the Tampa metro area. The service is available to consumers using the Shipt app.

MHI’s new Career Forum enables manufacturing and supply chain professionals to view current job postings of MHI member companies. Go to http://www.mhi.org/careers to find the perfect opportunity for you.

CBC News—Imagine you could travel from Montreal to Toronto in 30 minutes after buying a ticket to ride inside an aluminum pod that travelled at high speed inside a low-pressure tube. That's the dream of Toronto startup Transpod, which has taken up the challenge posed by SpaceX founder and billionaire Elon Musk to design what he calls the "fifth mode of transportation." Sebastien Gendron, founder of Transpod, says the company is working with the University of Toronto toward the goal of having a commercial prototype by 2020.

The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)—Cuyahoga Community College has debuted a mobile training unit to bring workforce development programs to local companies and schools. Tri-C retrofitted a 53-foot-long trailer to create the roving instructional space for the Manufacturing Technology Center of Excellence. The space houses a versatile lab for hands-on training and a classroom space with 10 desk stations, a whiteboard and video system.

South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)—Cainiao Network, the logistics arm of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, has established a non-profit foundation in Beijing with several leading logistics companies to promote environmentally-friendly transport services amid concerns over packaging waste. The Cainiao Green Alliance Foundation will tackle the growing amount of packaging waste related to the country’s e-commerce boom. The bulk of packaging waste often ends up in landfills without being recycled, as the process is often deemed overly expensive.

Supply Chain Dive—The Panama Canal will be employing a new platform by Quintiq, a Dassault Systèmesbrand,to better manage vessel scheduling and maritime resources, the Panama Canal Authority announced. The new system will help managed increased traffic to North American ports by reducing vessel waiting times, increasing daily slot availability and enhancing route reliability, according to the release.

EBN—The digital supply chain takes no prisoners. Far too many small businesses are being left in the dust by customers and lower tier suppliers as a tidal wave of automation, analytics, and digital communication protocols overwhelm companies who cannot keep up with evolving supply chain management methods.

MHI Blog—Today’s operations face an ever-changing, increasingly demanding world, with growing SKU counts, the desire for faster delivery times and a labor climate characterized by high turnover, scarcity and rising costs. With so much riding on supply chain investments, companies are flocking to this year’s ProMat show to see the most innovative warehouse solutions.

SupplyChainBrain—Supply-chain executives are under tremendous pressure to continually re-optimize their supply chains. While supply-chain economics must dictate where manufacturing and distribution assets should reside, tax changes and opportunities need to be looked at in parallel with the supply-chain economics to sustain the planned benefits. Looking forward to 2020 and beyond, we believe companies should pay particular attention to four trends that will accelerate the need for a tax-efficient supply chain.

Environmental Leader—Water-saving technologies at Ford’s Chicago Assembly Plant, implemented toward the end of 2016, helped the facility reduce water usage by 13 million gallons last year, and the automaker expects to that number to be significantly higher in 2017 after a full year of use. Ford implemented two projects at the plant last year: an increase in the re-use of water in the plant’s pre-treatment system and the addition of a cooling tower side-stream electrolysis (water softening) to remove calcium and magnesium.

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